


cross my heart

by hilyuc



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: ??? - Freeform, Angst, Church Boy Mark Lee (NCT), Finger Sucking, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Neck Kissing, Running Away, atheist donghyuck, but still sfw, copious usage of god metaphors, ewww, gets spicy at one point, this is cute (kinda)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:35:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24591652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hilyuc/pseuds/hilyuc
Summary: “If god hates anyone it’s me.”And it’s true, because god has cursed Lee Donghyuck to topple into love, with Mark Lee’s hands too busy clasping the cross around his neck to catch him before he falls.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 19
Kudos: 178





	cross my heart

**Author's Note:**

> hi so this is a bit different from the way i usually write (idk if u can notice but i for Sure noticed while writing) soooo maybe count this as me broadening my horizons and trying out different styles haha. anyways hope u enjoy !
> 
> also if you’re here after reading nothing is you and hearing me talk about how i’m gonna update more frequently- look away tee hee

✞

It starts with a knock on his front door. 

“Lee Donghyuck?” Comes from the lips of a boy with pitch black hair.

“Mark Lee.” The Lee Donghyuck in question replies, town too small, faces too few for him not to know the one that read each Sunday prayer at ten in the morning.

“Do you have a car?”

✞

And here they were, the two out of three Lee’s in their town, sitting in Donghyuck’s dad’s old model toyota with the windows rolled down, because Mark Lee seemed to breathe twice enough for the both of them. 

“Won’t your dad be worried?” Donghyuck raises an eyebrow, spares a glance over the steering wheel, speaks in a loud voice, because he doesn’t quite feel like moving to turn the radio down.

“I don’t give a shit.” Mark Lee says all to sharply and all to quickly for the words to mean something, voice dripping with spite.

Donghyuck wants to smile, but he doesn’t. 

“Isn’t cursing like a sin or something?” He asks instead, this time pressing the biggest button on the display to turn the radio off, “won’t you burn to ashes the next time you step into church?”

“Not before you do.”

It’s no secret that Lee Donghyuck likes kissing boys behind cheap diners as much as he likes them kissing back. Their town’s a small, dingy place, air always a little too fresh or a little too piss-smelling - word’s bound to get out. 

Not that he minds much. 

But Mark Lee’s voice is all bark no bite, so he doesn’t bother sparing him an answer.

Some part of him relishes in the fact that he  _ knows _ .

✞

“When do you plan on going back?” 

They’ve stopped by a convenience store just south from home, sun bright and limbs heavy. Donghyuck drove the whole night.

“When I stop feeling like this.” Mark Lee the church boy states as an obvious fact and drops a blue gatorade and two Snickers bars on the counter by the cash register. 

“Feeling like what?”

“Like God hates me.” Mark Lee says and pockets the spare change.

“If god hates anyone it’s me.” 

And it’s true, because god has cursed Lee Donghyuck to topple into love with Mark Lee’s hands too busy clasping the cross around his neck to catch him before he falls.

“God doesn’t hate you.” Mark turns to squint at him from the direct sunlight burning at his eyes.

“Do  _ you _ ?”

“No.”

Donghyuck pushes the store door open with a jingle of a bell above them, just like in church every Sunday morning, and feels Mark slip one of the candy bars into the back pocket of his shorts.

✞

“It’s gonna melt.” Donghyuck turns to look at him, sees Mark pointing at the Snickers bar he had tossed onto the panel, packaging dark against the bright sunlight. “Chocolate tastes like shit when it’s melted.”

“It still tastes like chocolate.”

“No it doesn’t.”

“Yes it does.” Donghyuck shifts the gear into a two. “You can have it if you want.”

“But it’s yours.”

“And now I’m giving it up for you.”

Mark reaches over to the candy bar and wraps his fingers around it, raises it to match his eye level and squeezes, the chocolate giving away easily under his fingertips. 

Donghyuck tears his gaze away.

“It’s all gross now.” Mark murmurs and pops open the glove department to throw it in, but doesn’t bother slamming it shut.

✞

They arrive at the cheapest hostel on the map. Not that they had no spare money, just that spending it on a spontaneous decision with no real consequences felt wrong. 

Donghyuck never really cared for the future, sought out things that wouldn’t lead him away from the present, which is why he doesn’t stumble over his words when he asks the lady at the reception to give them a room with a double bed.

Mark doesn’t say anything, and a part of Donghyuck (the one that believes in god) thanks him for that, but the other part (the one that doesn’t believe in god) hopes he had objected.

They take the stairs to the third floor, the keychain with a bright red _ 6 _ printed on it dangling in Donghyuck’s grasp.

Mark goes to lie down on the bed as soon as the key twists in the lock and the door pushes open. Donghyuck goes to piss.

“My birthday’s on the 6th.” Donghyuck says when he shuts the bathroom door after, plopping down onto the bed next to Mark Lee the church boy.

“The 6th of what?”

“Both.”

“The date and the month?” Mark catches on and a part of Donghyuck (the one that doesn’t believe in god) wishes he hadn’t.

Donghyuck hums in response and clasps Mark’s hand in his own. Mark doesn’t pull away, just keeps looking at the keychain in his lap. His fingers are pale and cold.

“One more 6 and you would’ve been deemed a devil.” 

“Would you have hated me then?” 

Donghyuck looks at the metal cross peeking out from Mark’s shirt where he had undone the two top buttons. He reaches out to take it between his fingers, finds that it doesn’t burn his skin.

“I don’t think so.” Mark says and he sounds earnest, like he truly can’t fathom the thought of hating the Lee Donghyuck besides him even if he had little devil horns sprouting from the top of his head and peaking through his dark hair.

✞

Donghyuck wakes up to the sound of soft praying.

He’d fallen asleep with his clothes on, and his hand in Mark’s, head drowsy from the sudden amount of sleep after not shutting his eyes for the entirety of the night prior.

Donghyuck doesn’t move, evens out his breathing, and watches as Mark mumbles small words to god with his palms pressed together and to his forehead. He doesn’t bother trying to make out what he’s saying, deciding it’s not his place, deciding he probably wouldn’t understand anyways.

“Are you done?” He asks when Mark goes quiet and lowers his hands to his lap.

“You want me to pray for you too?”

“No, thanks.”

“Okay.”

“We need to check out in twenty minutes.”

“Okay.”

They gather their belongings in silence. Not that there’s much laying around. 

Donghyuck pockets his car keys and watches Mark make the bed. Something inside him stirs alive. He clears his throat.

“Six minutes.”

Mark unbends his body and looks at Donghyuck.

Donghyuck looks away.

“I’m gonna go pee.” Mark Lee says.

“I’ll wait for you in the car.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Donghyuck throws the key on the bed and leaves just like he said. 

He shuts the door with the 6 behind him like a devil sent back up to heaven.

✞

Donghyuck says out loud that it’s been two days already.

Mark says out loud that he knows.

Donghyuck says to himself that he’s waiting for his resurection.

Mark says out loud that they should go see the ocean.

Donghyuck shifts gears and presses on the accelerator, says to himself he wants to be torn apart and then put back together under the stars.

✞

“Do you think homosexuality is a sin?” Donghyuck asks an hour into the drive.

“I think my father cheating on my mother is a sin.” Mark replies.

“You don’t think it’s wrong for a boy to kiss boys, but you think it’s wrong for a man to kiss women?” Thunder rumbles somewhere in the distance, and Donghyuck points up into the dark sky like he sees something peeking out from between the thick clouds. “I don’t think god’s too happy to hear that.”

Mark Lee is quiet for a while, both of them are. Donghyuck thinks that maybe Mark’s trying to catch a glimpse of god behind the storm that’s brewing above them.

“Would you want me to say that I hate you?”

_ Yes. Yes. Yes. _

“No, why would I?”

“Dunno,” Mark Lee the church boy shrugs and stares up at the sky, “would make it easier for you.”

Donghyuck knows that Mark knows; knows that he stares ahead at church when everyone stares above, and knows that he presses boys up against brick walls in hopes of catching a soft church boy walking by, and knows that he doesn’t believe in god, but finds himself praying every single night for his love to burn out.

Donghyuck’s not dumb, but he likes to play the part.

“Easier for me to what?”

“Easier for you to hate me.”

They look at each other then.

Mark’s gaze is burning with something. 

Donghyuck looks away, looks above.

No one answers.

✞

They arrive at the beach when the rain has stopped, but the sand is still damp. They descent down a hill and the sun does the same.

“How many boys have you kissed?” Mark Lee the church boy asks and looks to where the sun burns bright red near the line splitting the world in half.

“I don’t keep count,” Donghyuck says easy, and then easier: “it’s an odd number, though.”

“Why odd?”

“Makes me itch under my skin,” they sit down, the sand damp under his shorts, “i don’t like odd things.”

“Why not?”

“Why should I?”

“Why shouldn’t you?” and at this point he’s just saying whatever, a failed attempt at lighting a match that just won’t budge. “I’ve never kissed anyone.” He mutters to seal the deal, quiet like press of lips on skin begging for forgiveness.

“Odd.”

“Even, actually.”

“What?”

“The number zero - it’s even.”

Donghyuck laughs at that, startling the both of them. It’s not funny, and yet it is. He sees Mark smile too, with the very corner of his right eye.

“We could switch our numbers,” Mark says easy like the metal cross isn’t heavy around his neck, “then yours would be even.”

Donghyuck turns at that, the sand under him shifting until he is pressed close.

He thinks to himself only that Mark Lee has quite nice lips to look at, and he can see the metal of his necklace peeking out from under his shirt - a gentle reminder that his lips move and part to address God.

“Donghyuck.” Mark whispers, and it’s whisked away by the ocean breeze like it never was.

There’s no bigger meaning, no stretch towards the future, and it’s taken Lee Donghyuck eighteen years of his life to realise that some things are meant only for the present.

“Mark.” Donghyuck whispers back to even it out, and kisses him.

It’s easy kissing boys, always has been easier than kissing girls, and yet, he finds himself breathing shakily into the kiss when Mark puts a hand on his cheek in a soft caress, because Lee Donghyuck is used to hot and fast and hungry, not warm and slow and careful. 

Not Mark Lee the church boy with a cross around his neck.

The fingers on Mark’s other hand dig into the sand, and Donghyuck intertwines them with his own before they sink completely under.

They kiss, and kiss, and kiss, and kiss until Donghyuck has to pull away before the present melts into the future.

“You’re a really good kisser.” Mark says low in his throat, the slight wobble in his voice making Donghyuck’s insides churn with something he should have made sure to bury a long time ago.

“Thank you.” Is all he can say back, cheeks and lips alike in their shared shade of red.

“You’re welcome.” Mark says dumbly with his dumb parted lips and his dumb hooded eyes and his dumb cross necklace, and the sun disappears under the horizon when Donghyuck decides that he’s never really cared for the future that much anyways, and leans in to kiss him again.

✞

“I’ve told God about you.” Mark breathes hot against his neck, legs on each side of Donghyuck’s thighs, licks a long stripe up to the corner of his jaw.

“Yeah?” Donghyuck asks, mind hazy, eyes glazed, drops his head back against the backseat of his car. “What did you tell him?”

“Everything,” Mark bites down on his shoulder, “ and nothing,” Mark grips at his sides under his shirt, and then draws back to look Donghyuck in the eyes, “because as much as you’d want this to be untrue -” Mark presses down and Donghyuck bites back a whine, leans in until their noses are touching, “-i don’t know you, and you don’t know me.”

Donghyuck presses a kiss against the hand Mark has on his cheek. The fourth finger.

“Then let me know you.”

Donghyuck closes his lips around Mark’s thumb slowly, languidly, eyes never straying from Mark’s gaze above. There’s something in his eyes, something in the way his chest rises and falls, and his hips stutter with every lap of tongue, that makes Donghyuck believe in god.

“Only God truly knows me.” Mark says quiet when Donghyuck pulls back, lips slick with spit.

Donghyuck flips them over, presses Mark’s back down on the leather seats, slots himself between his legs.

Donghyuck moves down to press his lips against Mark’s neck, feels his heartbeat stutter under his skin, hands moving to the back of his neck, fingers finding the metal buckle and fumbling with it until it clicks open.

He draws back, the cross now heavy in his hand, and pulls the necklace over his head.

It’s cold where the metal presses against his skin, hot where Mark’s legs wrap around his waist.

Donghyuck looks at Mark, and Mark looks at Donghyuck - the faithless boy with a cross around his neck.

“Let there be two gods then.” Donghyuck says easy and Mark pulls him down to kiss him easier.

✞

Donghyuck watches Mark through the rolled-down car window. 

His back is turned, lips pressed close to the receiver of the payphone. They’re forming careful words, but Donghyuck hears no sound from here.

He looks to the sky, contemplates the existence of a higher being, and then the passenger door opens and slams shut afterwards, the warmth of a body felt even from here.

“What’d he say?” Donghyuck doesn’t turn to look.

“That I should get back before Sunday.”

“It’s Friday.”

“I know.”

“Okay.”

Mark bends forward to reach into the glove department and pulls out a Snickers bar. He hands it to Donghyuck, and the boy moves to take it, but Mark’s snatching it out of his grasp and pressing their lips together instead.

“You should keep it.” Mark whispers when they pull away, taking the cross still around Donghyuck’s neck between his fingers. Quiet like it’s a secret. Quiet like he doesn’t want god to hear.

But Donghyuck hears.

“I don’t even believe in god.”

“That’s fine,” Mark says, soft, and runs a finger over Donghyuck’s lips, softer, “as long as you pretend you do.”

Later when they’re hours into the drive, the sky turned dark long ago, Donghyuck turns to look at Mark.

Donghyuck looks at Mark Lee the church boy without a cross around his neck who’s sleeping in the passenger's seat of his dad’s red toyota, hand still outstretched from where it had held onto his own, and decides he doesn’t even have to pretend. 

✞

They arrive quicker than Donghyuck wanted to.

Donghyuck says out loud that they should get out when neither of them move for minutes on end.

Mark says out loud that he knows.

Donghyuck says to himself that he wants Mark to stay.

Mark says out loud that they will see each other on Sunday.

Donghyuck watches as Mark gets out and shuts the door behind him, says to himself he wishes Mark hadn’t left him alone with his thoughts and a cross weighing heavily around his neck.

✞

Donghyuck goes to church on the sixth day of the sixth month. It’s the seventh day of the week he notes as he steps inside and doesn’t burn to ash, nearly a devil. 

He sits in the usual spot, watches Mark speak of their saviour, lips forming the name of god.

He prays when everyone else does, head bowed, knees resting on the wooden stool in front, he prays and prays and prays, just not to the God everyone else does.

And later when the church bell rings twelve, and everyone’s letting god’s name slip past their lips in a confession or plea, Donghyuck’s repeating his own prayer of  _ Mark Mark Mark _ as the older presses him against the brick exterior of the church and connects their mouths in a kiss.

“Happy birthday.” Mark lee the churchboy smiles into the kiss and breaks away to let Donghyuck let out a laugh.

“The sixth day of the sixth month.” Donghyuck plays with the new cross necklace around Mark’s neck. “One more  _ 6 _ and I would’ve been deemed a devil.”

Mark pulls back and raises his hand, palm stretched out towards Donghyuck, a  _ 6 _ in red marker written right in the middle of it.

“What is this?” Donghyuck huffs out a laugh and shoves Mark’s hand down, intertwining their fingers, feeling the  _ 6 _ burn against the meat of his palm.

“A ressurection, maybe.”

“Of who?” Donghyuck asks, eyebrow raising, fingers playing with the sparse hairs on Mark’s nape.

“Of me.” Marks answers easy, and kisses Donghyuck easier.

**Author's Note:**

> [twt](https://twitter.com/HILYUC) / [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/HILYUC)


End file.
